Tim Wise PUBLIC LECTURE TRANSCRIPT

January 27, 2017 KANE HALL 130 | 7:30 P.M. TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION, page 1

Dave Eaton, Dean of the UW Graduate School

FEATURED SPEAKER, page 2

Tim Wise, Anti-racist writer, educator

Q&A SESSION, page 14

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LECTURES some of those. So that's one way. The other way is, you'll see INTRODUCTION microphones on the side aisles there. Please go to the microphone and line up in an orderly way and we will work our way back and forth to those. Mr. Wise assured me that he

would like to take as many questions as he can. We will Dave Eaton eventually probably run out of time but we’ll hopefully be able to get everybody in. Dean, UW Graduate School So, I know why you're all here, and you're here because Tim Good evening, everyone. I hope you're as excited as I am for Wise is among the most prominent anti-racist writers and this evening. I'm Dave Eaton, and I'm the Dean of the Graduate educators in the United States of America. He spent his past 20 School and I am really thrilled to welcome you here this years speaking to audiences in all 50 states, over 1,000 college evening. I have a few things to take care of before we introduce campuses, high school campuses, hundreds of professional our speaker: the usual, please turn off your cell phones or at meetings, and community groups throughout the country. He's least put them on vibrate. There's not to be any recording, the author of many books, including his latest called Under the audio or visual recording tonight. So please be aware of that. Affluence: Shaming the Poor, Praising the Rich and Sacrificing Many of you are aware that tonight's series was inspired by the Future of America. Other books include Dear White President Ana Mari Cauce’s Race and Equity Initiative more America: Letter to a New Minority, and his highly acclaimed than a year and a half ago. But it was also inspired by you. memoir, I'm sure many of you read this, White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son. That's just to name a Last year, we had a series on equity and difference. How many few. He's, was named one of 25 visionaries who are changing of you attended any of those? Yeah, quite a few of you. So, you your world by Utne Reader. He's contributed chapters to over, know, that at the end of each one of these lectures, we have a and essays to over 25 additional books and his writings are questionnaire and we will ask you tonight to fill that taught in colleges and universities throughout the nation. His questionnaire out. And last year we did a questionnaire after essays have appeared in Salon, Huffington Post, The Root, Black each one and one of the questions was “What would you like to Commentator, and Z Magazine, among other popular and see this year?” And overwhelmingly, you told us you wanted to professional and scholarly journals From 1999 to 2003, Wise create a safe space to talk about privilege. And we listened. And was an advisor to the Fisk University Race Relations Institute in here we are tonight. Nashville. Tonight, we proudly present our inaugural lecture addressing Some years ago, he was here in Seattle having a debate with privilege and the intersection of politics. Now, I don't want to Tim Eyman. How many of you were at that debate? In the early say that we were clairvoyant, about nine months ago, when we, 90s, early 90s, he was Youth Coordinator and Associate Director when we invited our speaker tonight, Mr. Wise, but what of the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism, the incredible timing we have, there's never been a time when his largest of many groups organized for the purpose of defeating words are going to be more important to listen to. This is the neo Nazi political candidate, David Duke. He's been featured in sixth of our 10 scheduled lectures that will address privilege several documentaries including the 2013 Media Education within the realm of race, history, education, arts and Foundation release, White Like Me: Race, Racism and White environment. So, we hope to see you again and again and again Privilege in America. He’s also appeared alongside legendary and again. So please remember to complete your post-lecture scholar and activist Angela Davis. And in the, in the 2011 survey because we do listen and it does make a difference for documentary, Vocabulary of Change. He appears regularly on how we schedule our lectures in the coming year. CNN and MSNBC to discuss race issues and was featured in a Now, at the end of the lecture this evening, you will have an 2007 segment on Twenty Twenty. opportunity to ask questions. And there's two ways that you Mr. Wise graduated from Tulane University in 1990 and can do that. One is you can text us a question, and it's very received anti-racism training from the People's Institute for simple. You saw it on the screen earlier. It's simply mayIask, M- Survival and Beyond in New Orleans. Please join me in A-Y-I-A-S-K, [email protected]. And those questions will pop up welcoming Mr. Tim Wise. on my little pad here and I will sort through those and read

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LECTURES 1 elected. That is white privilege. I want you to imagine that Barack Obama, while he was campaigning, was encouraging his FEATURED SPEAKER supporters at rallies to beat up people protesting him because, remember, there were lots of protesters outside of Obama's

rallies, they were carrying sock monkey dolls made to look like the president. They were carrying signs that told him to go back to Kenya. They were yelling things like “bomb Obama” at Tim Wise rallies, right? Imagine that Barack Obama had said to his followers inside the hall, “just beat the hell out of them and I Anti-racist writer, educator will pay your legal fees.” Imagine the likelihood that a man such Nice crowd. They told me this hall seats 720. But I'm doing, I'm as that, a Black man such as that, would become president of doing the Trump math. And so I think there’s at least a million the United States. If you can even fathom the possibility that of you. Just great. It's great. I'm going to demand a picture that such a thing would have happened, as it did, in fact happen this actually demonstrates a million of you. I'd like for UW security year when the current president encouraged his followers to to get on that please as quickly as possible so I don't have to beat up protesters and said that he would pay their legal fees call the Park Service. Yeah, it's going to be that kind of night. It's which was just one of another thousand lies that he told during good to be back. It's good to be back here at Kane Hall at UW. the campaign because he didn't actually step up to do that, And as you heard in the introduction, you know, there's a little surprise. If you believe that Barack Obama could still become bit, again, it was certainly not clairvoyance. But there were folks president while encouraging violence on the part of his who wanted to put this event together, I think before we knew, supporters, especially if they happened to have been some of sort of, you know, what we know. And the idea originally, which his Black or brown supporters in those rally halls, then you are I think was a good one, was that this talk would be about sort on the bad crack and probably need to get clean. Because there of, you know, white privilege talk, I don't know if it was is no way that a person of color could have said those things, intended to be sort of a generic white privilege talk or been taken seriously as a candidate, and become president of whatever, you know, because I talk about that stuff a lot. And the United States. so maybe that was the idea. And I was fine with that, you know, But white privilege, if it is nothing else, is the ability of I had my outline already for that. I was good. I had it on my incredible, almost stunning mediocrity to rise to the top calendar, and then some shit happened. And then, and then anyway, so long as it comes in an alabaster shell. It is the ability the shit that happened, makes it necessary to alter the remarks, of white folks with very little actual skill, talent and an awful lot you know, just a wee little bit, not because the stuff that of hot air and even potentially criminal behavior to find happened isn't about white privilege, because it sure as hell is themselves in positions of high power anyway. White privilege in about a million ways that we really don't have enough time is the ability to take over your father's 230 million dollar real to rattle off this evening, but I will mention a few. And then I estate empire and then still convince people that you’re a self- want to get back into the larger substance of what needs to be made man and billionaire by dint of your own hard work and said. effort. Certainly anytime that we talk about Donald Trump or the rise Do you know how hard it would have been to lose money in of Trumpism as a political movement, we are talking about New York in real estate in the 70s with a 230 million dollar head white privilege. And here's how we know this. I want you to start? Any y'all ever go to New York in the 70s? The place was imagine for a second that in 2007, and 2008, as Barack Obama falling apart in the 70s, in the early 80s, right? So if you had 230 was campaigning for the presidency of the United States, that million dollars as a cushion, you couldn't not make money. But he had been caught on tape, acknowledging that he was indeed we're supposed to say this man is a genius because he made a sexual predator, acknowledging that he grabs women by the money in the easiest real estate market, at the easiest time, genitals without their approval, and that's on tape. I want you with a 230 million dollar cushion. White privilege is what allows to imagine what the likelihood that a man such as that, a man us to believe that, to buy into that notion of the self-made man, of color, would be elected President of the United States in this rugged individual. By the way, if you learn nothing else this spite of acknowledging his commission of a criminal act, evening, and I expect you will learn a bit more, but if you don't, because that is what our current president did, and yet was still please know this. And this has nothing to do with Trump. This is

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LECTURES 2 just a general social truth. There is no such thing as a rugged however, however much they may be, because we don't really individual. In fact, I would go so far as to say there is no such know right? It's like I can tell you right now that I'm a thing as an individual abstracted from their social context, billionaire. And you'd be like, really prove it. No, no, I don't which is important when we talk about things like race, and have to prove it. Lots of people say I'm a billionaire. Lots of systemic inequality and privilege, right? Humans are inherently people believe me when I say that I'm a billionaire, everybody social creatures. We have never, any of us, been raised on an knows that I'm a billionaire, right? Some people just say it, see, island by a dolphin. Or whatever the hell is around the island. I again, another white privilege because Black folks, Latino folk, don't even know if that's a remotely good metaphor, but you Asian American folk, indigenous folks, y'all know that you can't know what I mean? Right, there are no such things as rugged just stand up and be like, yeah, I'm a billionaire. I'd like a loan individuals who make it on their own. for another billion dollars, please, you can't just walk into the bank or to your local friendly Russian mobster, and ask them If you ever actually meet a creature that is a rugged individual, for another billion dollars on the basis of the 6 billion you claim you need to run like hell from that thing. Because they will be you already have. You have to actually show some dangerous, they will be feral. They will not have language, they documentation. Privilege is when you don't have to. And that's will not know anything about the taboo that says not to eat not a privilege that many quote unquote non-white peoples you. So you need to run and run fast. But we have this have. So there's that. But I do want to discuss privilege in a little mythology of the rugged individual that I would go so far as to different way than perhaps we normally do. When we talk say that that is at the root of our problem when it comes to about it. Yes, on the one hand, some of the basic things are still race. Because as long as we believe that where you end up is true and perhaps need to be said, so for instance, it is true that about your own effort, right, then it becomes very easy to look when it comes to wealth and asset,s net worth, the typical around and see a structure, where some are up here and some white family today in this country, has about 15 times the net are down here. And the look of those up here is worth of the typical Black family, 13 times that of the typical disproportionately white. And the look of those down here Latino family. disproportionately of color, the look of those up here, disproportionately men, the look of those down here, It's not because we've worked harder or prayed harder. disproportionately not men, women or others on a gender fluid Certainly not because white people have superior investment spectrum not defined as men in this culture. It is rich people up skills. The collapse of Wall Street should have proved that to here, it is working class and poor people down here. It is very you if you weren't clear on that. White folks lost a hell of a lot easy, isn't it, if you have bought into the idea of rugged of money, y'all, a lot of money. No help from Black people. No individualism and meritocracy to then conclude without any help from Mexicans, be they documented or not. No Asian intentional bigotry, right, without any hatred in your heart American, Pacific Islander folk, no native folk in the room, just a without any blatant prejudice that these people just must be handful of the smartest highest MCAT and SAT-score-getting better and these people inferior, these people just must be white boys in the banking industry and they lost or stole $12 smarter and these people less so, these people must work trillion of other people's money. Now that takes skill y'all, to harder. And these people must not have the same work ethic. lose 12 trillion with a T, 20% of the accumulated net worth of In other words, racism and sexism and classism, and all of these the country that it took over 230 years to build up and these forms of, narrative forms of oppression become almost the white boys wiped it out in 18 months. Damn, that’s talent. default position of a culture that teaches that rugged That's some rugged individualism right there. So that 15 to one individualism uncritically, right. wealth gap can't be about intelligence or skill, because you don't lose that kind of money if you're real good, right? So it And it's a real privilege to buy into that mentality. Those who must be about a head start, it must be about the ability that don't have privilege, obviously tend to see things a little more some had intergenerationally to accumulate stuff when others clearly. But when you have it in any one of those categories, let couldn't. So that's one aspect of white privilege. It's worth alone several of them, right, it becomes a lot easier to default noting, but it's not what I want to talk about tonight. And it's to these ideas of inequality as natural, right? Of inequality as also true according to the Labor Department and Census data something that is ordained by biology or perhaps embedded that right now, they're certainly privileged in the labor market culture. And so we have to take that myth apart, not only vis-à- for white folks, I know we don't believe that, because I get vis, our current president, who was certainly not earned what emails all the time from folks, I got one last year from a young he has, in terms of his money, and in terms of his riches,

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LECTURES 3 man that you know, was yelling at me electronically, with the in LA, the rates there are 20 to one over a 10 year period that capital letters and the red font. Don't do that shit. Like, if you're was studied, but nationwide, three to one. So that's a certain mad at me, just write me a normal email. You don't have to be degree of privilege, right? The assumption that police all capital letters and red font. In fact, I'm probably not going to apparently make at least a disproportionate amount of the read it most of the time, when it's red font and capital letters time that the unarmed white folks that they are facing are not because I know it's going to be ridiculous. dangerous, whereas the unarmed black folks that they are facing are, and yes, we know the war on drugs is about not This guy sends me an email. He says, “I can't get a job because about drugs, that's for damn sure. We know that. Well, I mean, all the good jobs are going to Black people and Mexicans.” if you don't know that, let me just explain to you without even Really, all the good jobs? All the good jobs are going to Black the statistics, I'm gonna throw you a few in a second, but I don't folks, where the hell are Black folks and Mexicans taking all really need to, I can just assure you that if the war on drugs these jobs? Right? Which job, are these in Second Life? Where were about drugs, I don't know who'd be given this talk tonight. the hell are these jobs? On Minecraft? What jobs are these, But I'm pretty confident that it wouldn't be me, because I don't right? African American folk have twice the unemployment rate think they let you Skype this shit in from prison. And that is of white folks, even when they have college degrees. Latino folk where I would be, I can tell you this now because the statute of have 50% higher unemployment rates than white folks even limitations has expired so you can't touch me. But we know the when they have college degrees. Asian Americans have 23% war on drugs is not about drugs, right, the data from the higher unemployment rates than white folks even when they National Institutes of Health National Institutes on Drug Abuse, have college degrees. Our indigenous brothers and sisters have CDC, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services two-thirds the unemployment rate of white folks even when Administration, every private study you could potentially they have college degrees. So wherever the hell people of color consult, they all say the same thing. The rates of drug use, even are taking these white folks jobs, they are not taking them far. the rates of drug dealing roughly identical across racial lines, Like one block and that's like yeah, I'm done with that, here, often even higher in the usage category for white folks than for have it back. Right. people of color depending on the age group that we're looking at. And yet, African American folks: four times more likely to be Not to mention, it's white privilege and entitlement, isn't it, for arrested for weed than white folks, even though usage rates white folks who say, they took my job. For real, they took your and dealing rates are the same. So clearly, right, there's some job? Did you have it yet? Because if you didn't have it yet, that privilege embedded in the way that the so-called war on drugs shit wasn't yours. That's how that works. I mean, I guess if the is operated, but that isn't what I want to talk about tonight. bosses of America were like just willy nilly firing white people to fill the slots with brown folk, then you might have an argument. * * * * * But that's not what's happening. It isn't your job until you actually have been hired to do it. But a sense of privilege and a What I want to talk about is how we can understand white sense of entitlement and a sense of expectation says that they privilege not only as an operative thing that gives advantage to must be taking our stuff even when the data says very clearly, those of us so-called, but, and this is an important piece that to that isn't true. So that's privilege, yes, but that's not what I some extent, we often leave out, and I think we do so at our want to talk about tonight. I mean, I just did but this is a peril if we're trying to build movements for social change, if rhetorical device, you know. It's the shit that speakers do to we're trying to build movements of solidarity, if we’re trying to build drama. build movements against oppression that involve all oppressed people fighting together, rather than fighting against one * * * * * another. I want to also talk about the way that that system of privilege as real as it is, and as much as it provides relative And yes, it is true that the essence of white privilege can be benefits to those of us called white, how it also sets those very found in our criminal justice system where we know for same people up and creates an untenable, unsustainable instance, putting aside the different rates of police violence, we system that in the long run is actually not healthy, even for the know, for instance, unarmed African Americans are three times vast majority of those people who believe it is. Including the more likely to be shot by police than unarmed white folks, even vast majority of those people who cast their lot with Donald when neither are posing a direct threat to the officers at a John Trump because they felt he was going to solve their given time. Some communities, it's worse than that. I was just problems, because he told them that he would. That's what I

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LECTURES 4 want to talk about, because that's the question, isn't it since on tape admitting that the strategy of the right for years, not the election, people want to know, why did all these people fall just in some abstract sense, his own strategy, because he was for this? What is this? And there are two sort of operative talking about what he was doing, and what people like him, answers, right? The answer that says, well, it's all racism. You were doing, at the time, he didn't have any shame about it know, Donald Trump is a racist, all his supporters are racist. It's now, about a decade later, when he was diagnosed with cancer simple bigotry. And then there's the other side that basically from which he would ultimately die, he did have this sort of says, Oh, that's horrible. You shouldn't say that about those epiphany and he apologized for much of what he had done. folks. They're not racist. They're just responding to their Right. But in 1981, he really didn't have any shame about it. So economic frustrations and anxiety. But what if both of these he just laid it out. He said, on tape, he said, you know, 1955, things are true? And what if they are true directly in relation to you just get up and you say, and it's the N-word, I'm not going each other? What if it is about race, but specifically in the to say it, but he did three times, you just say that over and over context of a system of economic inequality that pits us against and over again. And, you know, you can get away with that, if one another? And what if it is about class, but only because of you're trying to hurt Black people. Then by the late 60s, you the backdrop of a system of white supremacy that has made can't say that word anymore. It hurts you. It gets you in trouble. whiteness salient within that system? So that's the complexity So now you start using other things. You start saying states that we don't like to talk about, because we don't like rights and talking about crime and taxes and welfare, right? complexity when we talk about race. We like to be very Because it sounds more abstract. And now he says, at some straightforward. point, you're getting so abstract that it sounds like you're just talking about economic stuff, but the real bottom line is black So after the election, folks would sort of ask me my opinion, folks get hurt more, hurt worse than white folks, and that's the they email me they, you know, on Facebook or whatever, I'd point. In other words, he was acknowledging that the strategy run into folks and they would say, do you think Trump is a of the right for many years up until that point, had been what, racist? You think Trump is a racist? Do you think Trump is a to use what Anthony Lopez calls dog whistle politics, right? This racist? Is Trump a racist? What do you think? Is Trump a racist? idea that we can't be as blatant and as obvious but will appeal And from the very beginning, I was just so incredibly bored with to that same lizard part of the brain with the same kind of that question. It’s a totally irrelevant question. Right. Now, coded words that Nixon used in the southern strategy that some of you may think, well, the answer is obviously, yes. And Atwater helped craft for Ronald Reagan. Right? Or George HW others may think it's obviously no. I just don't care. You know, Bush with the Willie Horton ad and now comes along Donald to ask whether Donald Trump is a racist, right, it's like asking if Trump, who apparently didn't get the memo that you're a drug dealer is also an addict. Right? I don't know. I don't know supposed to be subtle about, you shit. Right, like dog whistles if the drug dealer is an addict. And I don't know if Donald and and and and foghorns are decidedly different. Right? But Trump is a racist. I have no idea if he gets high on his own what’s said is, right sort of scary and you used to have to do the supply, but I know what he's selling. Do you understand? I dog whistle, because if you did the foghorn you would not get know what he's selling. So if he's dealing that, if he's dealing anywhere. that, whether that's in his heart, whether that resides in his heart is some, you know, deliberate, effective thing, I have no Apparently, we have moved to a place where one doesn't even idea but it isn't the point. have to be subtle, that doesn't say anything good about where we are as a country, but he didn't sort of near the end. So he It's about whether one is willing to go to that place to utilize sort of tried to use some of that at Atwater-like subtlety, right? racial bias, to utilize racial resentment, to utilize racial anxiety, So when he would start talking about those areas that he likes to utilize a politics of prejudice in order to gain power because to call the inner city, because apparently he hasn't kept up with that kind of thing has been going on for a very long time. basic linguistics in the last 20 years to know we don't really use Remember, it was Lee Atwater up until Karl Rove, perhaps the that term anymore for urban space, right. But he's still stuck in best known conservative Republican political consultant in the 80s. You know, where he still thinks the Central Park five American history, he worked for Reagan, worked for George are guilty inspite of DNA evidence that says they're not and a HW Bush. He worked in a number of conservative senate guy that confessed “I did it,” and Trump's like, nope, I think campaigns, he was sort of the, the guy if you were trying to those five guys still did it. Because science doesn't matter. A organize a conservative Republican candidacy in the 80s. That's confession doesn't matter. Lots of people think I'm right. I who you turn to, right. And in 1981, Lee Atwater was recorded

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LECTURES 5 never apologize for anything, because I'm never wrong about rate in their own district. But right, the idea that crime is out of anything. Y'all do know also that he said he was the best control in Atlanta, or for that matter, most places in this baseball player in the city of New York as a young man. No shit, country, not true. The reality is the violent crime rate in this I just thought I'd throw, that's not even in the notes, but I just country is 40% to 50%, below what it was in the late 80s and like he said that I was the best baseball player in New York, yo, early 90s, in spite of a handful of outlying cities like Chicago they got the Yankees. Right? Even the Mets in those days like, that yes, are in the midst of a crisis. But even Chicago's violent come on. Like really? You're the best base— Yes, the best crime rate today is lower than it was in the early 1990s and in baseball player, the best. And the standing ovation that he got the late 1980s, Washington DC’s homicide rate, the lowest it's at the CIA the other day, right was the biggest, no shit, this is been since 1965. The overall Black male homicide rate in this what he said, the biggest standing ovation since Peyton country, the same or lower than it was in 1950. See facts Manning won the Super Bowl. All right. All right. All right. So, so matter. Right? At least they matter to people who are a room with like 300 dudes in it. Even if they all stood up, interested in them and interested in being truthful as they try Peyton Manning won a Super Bowl in front of like, 75,000 to lead the country. But if you use that language, about decay people in a stadium. It's math. It's math. But he said, he says it and dysfunction and pathology, its signals to people, you should and people are like, I like him because he just says whatever is be afraid of them. on his mind. I got two children. They did that shit when they were four. You didn't vote for them for President. But that's not * * * * * what I want to talk about. That was the foundation of Trumpism. It's not to say that everybody that voted for Trump did so for racist reasons. And * * * * * it's not to say that all Donald Trump did was play upon race. He Anyway. Back to this other stuff about Atwater. So he started did talk about other things, but the foundation of that house using this code when he talked about the inner cities, right? So without which the other floors don't remain standing, right, just he didn't actually go to one. He just, he just went to like a white like when you build a real house, the foundation of that house suburb that was sort of close, like, eight interstate exits away, was about race. How do we know? How did he burst onto the or whatever, from actual urban space where Black people live. scene? Politically, I mean, right, with the birtherism And, and then he gave a talk about, you know, how he wanted phenomenon, right? This idea that the president of The United to help the poor benighted souls of the City of Milwaukee or States wasn't born in the country, folks were going to rallies wherever. Right. And he did it with some of this sort of dog with those signs, go back to Kenya and they had pictures of the whistle politics stuff, he started talking about, you know, crime president dressed as a African witch doctor with a bone and violence, and how you can't walk out of your house through his nose. So how can we deny that birtherism was without getting shot. Right, and how nobody has a job and about the racial and cultural othering and the religious othering nobody has an education. Now, of course, at the time people as a secret Muslim, whatever the hell that means of Barack said, oh, see, he's being sympathetic. He's trying to signal that Obama, it was always about appealing to the most base, racist he cares about those people. That wasn't the signal. That Islamophobic, cultural supremacist mindset of a certain wasn't the signal. The signal was to remind white people in segment of America and that's what he built his political entree those suburbs, how much they fear those Black and brown folks on. And then fast forward to his decision to run for president, who live in the cities by reminding them of just how dangerous he comes down that tacky ass gold escalator in Trump Tower. and how horrible their lives are even if that's not actually Right, Trump Tower, you ever been in Trump Tower? That's accurate, you know, the reality is the vast majority people in like, you know, that's like a poor person's version of what rich those spaces do have a job. The vast majority of those people in people like is all that tacky, golden golden, gilded shit. Like, those spaces do not in fact get shot every time they walk out look, it's like I'm in the Roman Empire. Look at the, I mean, the door. Right. He just went in on John Lewis and said the fifth what the hell like it's just ugly. It's hard. He comes down this district in Georgia, which is Atlanta, and a handful of suburban damn escalator. He's waving to everyone. They’re all clapping, areas around Atlanta, was a cesspool of violence falling apart. ah, great, gets behind the golden microphone or whatever the Really? Atlanta. Really? Right. Violent crime is actually down by hell and he, and what does he say? He says, starts talking about two- thirds since John Lewis became a House Rep in 1987. Now, what, not trade, at least not in the abstract, starts talking about you can't get credit for that when you're a congressperson, the Chinese as screwing us on trade. So it's about those people, because obviously a congressperson can't control the crime starts talking about the Mexicans, screwing us on trade, those

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LECTURES 6 people, Mexicans coming over the border, who are what, have this last glory, right and those people, and I'm going to tell rapists and murderers and drug dealers, but I'm sure some of you who they are, the Mexicans, the Chinese, the Black Lives them are good people, is what he says. Right? He's othering Matter protesters, the people who are different from you, the people from the very beginning. It's about bashing Islam, which Muslims, the LGBTQ community, these folks are the ones who is not a race, obviously. But let's be honest, in a post-911 you need to fear. Right. It's a very old tactic. And it isn't the only environment, can we really deny that Islam has been racialized? thing that he did, but it's the foundation. So we can't Of course not. It's been racialized. We know that because when understand Trumpism without understanding that. the Boston Marathon bombing happened, remember who did that? Two white guys. We don't like to think of them as white Having said that, it would also, I think, be wrong to assume that because we don't like to think of Muslims as white. But these that was all that was going on. Right. So when people make this are, they're from the Caucasus Mountain region, y'all. The argument about economic anxiety, or you know, economic Caucasus Mountain region. That's where we get our frustration, I think we have to ask ourselves, to what extent was anthropologic physical name and shit. Like they're whiter than that about that and how do we understand that? Now, first off, damn near every white person in this room. If your people are let's be clear, I think it is absurd to believe that white folks from England, yeah, you ain't white. The Tsarnaev’s brothers, voted for Donald Trump simply because of their economic they're white. Right? But every, every cartoon of them, every frustration and anxiety in the abstract. The reason I say that's image of them was darkened and made to look quote unquote, absurd is if economic anxiety were all that was required to Middle Eastern. They’re not from the so-called Middle East. cause somebody to vote for Donald Trump, Black and brown Right? But it makes it easier, isn't it, if we racialize Islam. folks would have flocked to Donald Trump. For the reasons that I mentioned before, yes, I mean, if Black folks are twice as likely So that was the entire foundation of Trumpism at the to be out of work, three times as likely to be poor, one- beginning, which is to say, yeah, he starts talking about other fifteenth the net worth right, then I think it stands to reason, stuff later, about bringing jobs back and infrastructure and, you white folks might have some economic anxiety, but Black folks know, going after hedge fund managers and raising their taxes. have got some too and quantitatively in quite a bit greater Hadn't heard much about that one since he got elected, but he numbers. didn't talk about that stuff. But that was like the second floor of the house, third floor of the house, attic on the house. But So if economic anxiety were enough to make you vote for that none of that stuff matters if you don't have a foundation, the man, Black and brown folks would have lined up around the foundation was rooted in white racial anxiety, right? White block to do it, but they didn't. So it can't be about that in the racial resentment, and it was appealing to the notion of white abstract. It doesn't mean it's not about that at all. And I'm privilege of seeing America, this sort of this insipid white about to explain to what extent I think it was, but we can't nationalism. Right, not the white nationalism of Richard accept this sort of, sort of narrative we're hearing in the media, Spencer and, and those fools but I'm talking about the white which says, oh, it has nothing to do with race, it’s just about nationalism that's very mainstream in this country. Right, one economics. These people are frustrated, they're hurting, Don't that sort of perceives America as a fundamentally white space, you know that? They've been forgotten, you know, unlike black that it once was and shall be again, you know, make America and brown folks, whom we always take care of so splendidly, great again, right? The slogan was again, not particularly subtle. right. So what was the economic piece? Because I think those who say it wasn't about that at all and it was all and only about I have to say the other day when Milo [Yiannopoulos] was here bigotry and racism are also wrong and oversimplifying. Here's and I, I wasn't going to say a whole lot about this. But I did sort why I think it was about economics but only in the context of of find it funny. I watched it on, I watched some coverage of it white supremacy. It was interesting, resonant to hear folks say and I saw some pictures of you know, his supporters with the, things like, you know, we want our jobs back in our with the MAGA hats. I find it hilarious, just as a side note, when communities in the rust belt, in Appalachia and coal country. 20 year olds wear hats that say Make America Great Again, like, what America do you even remember? If you're 20, like for real, Right, these jobs, first of all, keep in mind manufacturing jobs like, what are you saying? Like you want to go back to juice have been fleeing this country for the last 43 years, really boxes and play dates at Gymboree? What the hell does that began happening in earnest around 1973. This is not Obama, even mean to a 20 year old? But that slogan was very deaf, right? This is not about the last eight years; this has happened wasn't it? It was very deaf, because it's a way of suggesting we through Democratic and Republican administrations,

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LECTURES 7 conservative, liberal, moderate, whatever terms you want to had the luxury of believing it in the first place so they didn't get use. It's been happening since I was five years old, it isn't new. knocked off stride, see, Black and brown folks when the Right. And yet, only now are people freaking out enough to join recession hit and a lot of these white working class folks that or become part of this movement that we're looking at in terms aren't coping very well right now and they're in real pain, and of Trumpism even though the pain has been real for a long we ought to feel sorry about that and we ought to have great time. Remember, Billy Joel wrote the song Allentown in like empathy for that and we better do something about that. But 1983. That's some old shit, right? And that was a song about let's understand something. When double digit unemployment deindustrialization in a place like Allentown, Pennsylvania, in hit the rust belt in 2009 and 2010 that was not new for Black the rust belt. people. That was not new for Latino folks, that was not new for Southeast Asian folk, that was not new for indigenous people, So, you know, some of this stuff has been coming for a very double digit unemployment was called Monday in those long time. But what's interesting is when you hear white folks communities. talking about how their towns are dying, and that that pain is real, that's a very real thing. But you sort of have to start to And it is precisely because white America, including white wonder about why it has been so much more difficult, working class America had had the luxury of never thinking it apparently, for some, those persons in those communities that would get quite that bad. Now it had before, but it had been 80 I'm talking about, to cope with that economic anxiety than it years since the Great Depression, we’d had three generations has been for people of color. And here's what I mean. There of white folks who would never know that level of collective was a survey taken a couple years ago, it found that Black folks insecurity. And so all the sudden, if you've been told my life's were the most optimistic racial group in America. Right, and going to be at eight, nine or 10, as long as I bust my ass, as long white folks were the most pessimistic racial group in America. as I'm a rugged individual, the old saying was, as long as you're Now help me with this. If I am a member of a group that has strong, have a strong back and can lift stuff, you'll always have twice as much of all the good shit, on average, and half as much a job. And so if you were white working class, you could believe of all the bad shit, right, how is it that I think the wheels are that, you think black working class folks took that for granted? coming off? Right? I'm more likely to have a job, I'm less likely You think Latino working folks took that for granted? You think to be poor, I got more money in the bank, but I'm like, oh my indigenous working class folks, they never assumed that they'd god, everything is terrible. And the group that has less of the always have a job just because they worked hard, just because good stuff and more of the bad stuff is like, I don't know, things they were strong and could lift things. But white working class are looking up. How does that make sense? There's only one folks could, they could say, well, my daddy worked in the coal way in which it makes sense, right? Only way in which that can mine, his dad, he worked in the coal mine, his daddy worked in make sense is that perhaps those white folks who are still the coal mine, his dad, he worked in the coal mine, I work in the considerably ahead under every indicator of social well being coal mine and by God, my son's going to work in the coal mine. that you could possibly point out, are falling behind relative to They don't ever talk about what their daughters are going to their expectations. Right. And people of color, even though do. Which is another issue. This is also about patriarchy and the they're still behind on every indicator of well being are seeing assumptions of masculinity. Right? openings and opportunities that are allowing their expectations to rise. But what does it mean that you just assume that you'll always have that coal job. And those coal jobs, by the way, are not Now see, that is a really interesting phenomenon, because being eliminated because of the EPA regulations. It's not being what that means is this: if I'm white, and I've been told that all I eliminated by environmentalism and environmental activists. gotta do is work hard. All I gotta do is work hard. Put in Those jobs are being eliminated because coal companies maximum effort, do the right thing, play by the rules, keep my decided and discovered they could do it cheaper by just head down and my nose clean. Go to work on the weekend, blowing mountaintops up and going after the coal that way skip the vacations if necessary, do all that I can. And I'll always rather than doing the labor intensive way they had always done have a job and I'll always be able to pay for my kids' college and it. It's about corporate profits. Right. But Donald Trump doesn't I’ll always have money for health care and I'll always have want them to blame corporate profits and greed on the part of money for retirement, if I've been told that and I've had the the coal mine owners, right. He wants him to blame the luxury of believing it, then I'm in trouble when the economy liberals, the environmentalists, whatever. Right. And so if I've shifts under my feet like wet sand. Black and brown folks never always had that sense of entitlement, that sense of

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LECTURES 8 expectation, that privilege of believing that the system was It's interesting, isn't it, we're only worried about this border. going to work, that's a privilege, isn't it, to believe the system Nobody seems much concerned about the prospects of crafty actually works as advertised? Right? Marginalized people know Canadians sneaking in to take advantage of our superior health better, right? But white folks don't. And so that privilege sets care system. We're mightily worried about these. Right? you up. It leads you to believe the world works like this. And as Nobody seems much concerned about the fact that 40% of long as it keeps working like that, everything's good. undocumented people in this country didn't come over any border illegally, quote, unquote, they came with visas either for The minute the economy shifts, and those jobs goes, go away, work or education, overstayed them, a disproportionate and they're not coming back. Right, those jobs go away. And all number of those are from Canada or from Europe, not from of a sudden, folks don't know how to cope. So that's what I Mexico or point south. Nobody seems to care much about that. want us to talk about. I want us to talk about how the economic That's not about legality and illegality, documentation or lack anxiety which is very real is nonetheless tied to a sense of white thereof. It's about deciding that these people are inferior, it’s expectationalism that has set people up. That's how privilege is racialized, intensely, right. But if I come along and say that's dangerous for white people. We know, understand how it's why you don't have jobs, we just build a wall. Just build a wall dangerous for people of color, but it's dangerous for white and those jobs will come back. Everything will be fine. people because it sets us up to expect certain things that maybe get delivered nine times out of 10 but that one time out Really, you think, you think that's how that works? You build a of 10 is the one that really matters isn’t it if you always thought wall, and suddenly capitalists, like fold, like a cheap tent. Right? you'd have work and now you're out of work for 26, out of Like all of a sudden capitalists, when you build a wall, are going work for 26 weeks. How do you cope with that? Think about it, to be like, damn it. I mean, we, we've been screwing you all this especially if you've been told, what did I say before, the myth of time, right? Paying you crappy wages, cutting your benefits. But meritocracy and rugged individualism. We've all been taught now that you figured out the hustle and built the wall, I guess that. we're going to have to give you a raise. No buttercup, that's not how capitalism works. If you build a wall, like for instance, do So if I'm taught that all my life, that wherever I end up is all you think the wall is going to stop capital from moving? Like is about me, see, wherever I end up, it's all about me and my the wall also in cyberspace like a firewall? And so when rich effort, my hard work, my intelligence, and then all of a sudden, people go to move all their shit to the Cayman Islands or move I'm struggling. What happens? Psychology 101, right? How do I the plant to Sri Lanka, they're going to hit the button and all of deal with this sense of frustration? Right? I have to figure out a a sudden it's going to be like boop, nope, it hit the wall. Oh, way to explain it because the original default position is going damn it. The wall, forgot about the wall. No capital will always to tell me what? Something wrong with me. You're not working be mobile. Capital will always be mobile in search of the highest hard enough. You need to work harder. You need to double rate of return. Goods will always be traded and mobile across down on your work effort. You’re working 50 hours a week, borders in search of the highest price. And if capital can move work 60, work 70, work 80, right? Right, because that voice in in search of the highest rate of return and if goods can move in the back of my head, the voice, the narrative of the culture, the search of the highest price, but labor is chained to its country of secular gospel, the creation myth of America, this notion of origin, basic economics will tell you that the game is inherently meritocracy tells me that if I'm winning, it's because I'm the tilted against workers not just south of the border, but north of best, if I'm losing then I’m to blame. So if I'm losing now, I'm that border as well and in favor of capital. So tell me again how blaming myself, but psych 101 says I got to deflect that onto this benefits working people? It does not. somebody else. Because I don't want to deal with that, I can't deal with the shame that comes from that failure in a culture But if I tell you, that's the source of your pain, see here's the that attributes that failure to my own inadequacy. So now I got thing that's real deep about this. Y'all probably have seen the to start casting around for other villains upon whom to put the reports about the opioid crisis in white America, right? It's blame. And along comes a candidate who says, I got your funny how we call it opioid crisis when it's white people. There villain. It’s those people, it's Black folks in the cities, who was an opiate problem in the cities of America in the 70s, menace you with their crime. It's those brown folks coming usually around street heroin, and we just call folks junkies. And over the border. Right, to take your stuff. we didn't have a lot of sympathy for them, just like we didn't with crack in the 80s.

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LECTURES 9 * * * * * you just wanted to sum up the history of our country with regard to those concepts, this is the sentence: The history of And so we just locked people up. We treated drug addiction as America is the history of rich white men, telling not rich white a matter of criminal law and not a public health issue. But now people, that their problems are Black and brown people, it's white folks on oxy or whatever they're making now, you period. That is the history of America. And if you don't believe know, so we got to get these people some help. We have a me, let's trace it out. whole different opinion of drugs when it's white folks, right? That’s why y'all legalize it, set up shops and shit. Weed shops, Real quick, very brief history lesson, go back to the colonies 95% of the owners of the weed shops in the states that have before we're even a country. Right, at a time when you had made it legal or white, are overwhelmingly white men, making African enslaved folk, you had European indentured servants, millions of dollars selling something that black and brown youth just one level above enslavement themselves, right? And are sitting in jail for right now. And the only reason they're in oftentimes these individuals because they were all being jail and the white folks are making millions of dollars is that the screwed over by the elite landowners and the colonies began to other folks sold their stuff too soon and without the proper recognize they had some commonality of interest, in spite of occupational license and the money to get a storefront. Right. different skin color, in spite of different customs, in spite of It's crazy. different cultural heritage, they began to realize that they had more in common and they would commit rebellion, Bacon's But that's not what I came to talk about. So this is like jazz. It's Rebellion being one but certainly not the only example of that. gonna be all over the place. And it's not, it's not linear. It's not And so what did the elite landowners do? Because keep in linear. I'll be back on track here in a second. But the point about mind, they were outnumbered, weren't they? They were a very the opioid crisis, right, what is an opiate? So we have all these small percentage of the population just like the super wealthy stories about white rural areas, and particularly where folks are a very small percentage of the population today, that's have gotten hooked on opioids and what is an opioid? An always been the case. They were outnumbered by the peasant opioid is something that is intended to block pain receptors. class, both Black and now called white because remember, Right? That's what it does. It blocks the pain. And that's why I there was no such thing as white people yet. Hope you know think it's fair to say that Donald Trump is a walking, talking, that. That's what's so fascinating about the white nationalist breathing opioid. Right? Because he's someone that folks have movement, right? decided they will give their power over to to block their pain. See, the pain is real. For many of these folks, the diagnosis is How the hell are you going to have a movement based on a horribly false. And we need to be able to be radically honest nationalism of a group that didn't even exist as such until 400 about calling out the falsity of the diagnosis, but radically years ago? There was no such thing as the white race. We empathic about acknowledging the pain. See if I have a pain in didn't spend our time in Europe, one big happy family, what the my side, and I decided to consult Dr. Google, which is a horrible hell, you think we were one big team in Europe? We spent our idea, by the way, don't ever consult Dr. Google about anything, time killing each other in Europe. That's what we did. The because Dr. Google will have you convinced that you are going history of Europe is the history of killing each other and trying to be dead by the morning. Right? If I have a pain in my side, to figure out who the witch is. That's it. So you could just boil and I consult Dr. Google and I come to the conclusion that I down history to a couple sentences, sometimes, it's real easy. I have cancer, the odds are incredibly good that I'm wrong. The mean, you know, the Anglo hated the Irish. The Irish hated the diagnosis is flawed. The pain, however, is real. And I would Anglo. Northern Italians didn't even think Southern Italians hope that I could get some help from my pain or something to were Italians. The Germans hated everybody, and everybody attend to the pain. But I would hope that it would be the else hated their ass right back. There was no such thing as the proper diagnosis. white race, but in the colonies, there needed to be one. Because if you got these Black folks enslaved and these The problem is that scapegoating works and it has always European peasant class folks, indentured servants, or maybe worked and what Donald Trump has done, sort of play into a just one level above that, right, eventually they're going to very old narrative in that regard, that works with people when figure out the game and take your stuff. So you got to figure they are desperate, and precisely because they are because out a way to divide and conquer these folks. really, if you wanted to understand the history of this country in one sentence, when it comes to the issue of race and class, if

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LECTURES 10 So what do you do? You say now you're a member of this thing any of us, if not all of us, in this room. And yet they're the called the white race. You're on our team. Yeah, you're wearing stranger. They're the, it’s like if I come to your house, kick you our uniform, you're at the end of the bench, you're not starting out of it, put all your shit on the curb and then you try to come in the game, but you're on the team, you understand, we're back. I'm like, nope, change the law. And then we call that going to put you on the slave patrol, by the way, give you a gun justice. But that's not what I came to talk about. and a badge and a horse. And you're going to help us keep those people in line, give you a little taste of power, let you The point being right that the southern elite acknowledged at testify in court, let you enter into contracts, if you're a male, let the time, that it was all about white supremacy and you vote. And we're going to get rid of indentured servitude enslavement. That's what they wanted. That's why they broke also. So you won't ever be confused with those Africans who away. Alright now, here's the thing, though. Sort of tricky, isn't will always be the floor beneath which you will not be allowed it? Because the rich wanted to break away to maintain their to sink. They began creating what WEB Du Bois would later call interest in slaves, right? Their property interest in other human what the psychological Wage of Whiteness, right? The idea that beings. But here's the thing, they didn't want to fight. Because I might not have much but at least I'm not black. I might not rich people don't go to war, right? Whether we're talking about have much but at least I'm not Mexican. I might not have much the 1800s, the 1700s, or, like now, right, rich people don't go to but at least I'm not Chinese brought here to build the railroads war, they get poor people to do that, rich people don't go to in the transcontinental economy I might not have much but at war. Here's an example rich people get doctors to write them least I'm not indigenous, you see, giving you the idea of phony ass notes claiming they have heel spurs, so they don't superiority even as they continue to kick you in the ass every have to go to war. And if you're not sure what that reference is, day, in the name of their own profit, in the name of building up by all means, consult Dr. Google on that one tonight because their own stuff. Right? that you will find and it will be accurate. Right, rich people don't go to war. Rich people get poor people to do it. So now you got * * * * * these rich southerners that are like, yeah, this is about keeping our stuff. But I want you who's poor, who doesn't have any Fast forward, it continues to work, you get to the Civil War era stuff to go fight, to protect my stuff. That's like a hard like, and my people in the south, you know, I'm from the south all that's a puzzle like how to, why would you do that? Right? It's my life, my people back in the day, didn't have any shame weird. It's like, I'm not rich. But you know, for those of you who about telling you why they wanted to see, they were real clear. are students, I probably got more than you. Because back in the day, my people weren't ashamed of the system of enslavement. They were pretty chill with it. So at the So here's the thing, like if there was a war next week, and there time that the south decided to break away, what did the elite was an invasion on my block, and some army was marching say? They're very clear. Alexander Stephens, the Vice President down my street, ready to take my stuff, I doubt very seriously of the Confederacy doesn't mince words. He says the very that I could call any of you and be like, hey, there's an invasion. cornerstone of our new government is what the idea, the great And they're about to take my shit. I'd like for you to come and truth that the Negro is not the equal of the white man. He fight for it. Because I'm going to sit out on the back porch and didn't talk about trade policy, didn't talk about tariffs, didn't have a drink. Even if you liked this speech, you'd be like, nah. talk about states rights in the abstract or whatever nonsense But the rich got the poor in the south to fight that battle, how? we'd like to say now. I mean, really what states right do you Those poor people didn't own other human beings. They barely think my folks were fighting for? You think it was fighting over own the shirt on their back. They didn't have any land. They the proper recipe for a mint julep? Was Alabama fighting with didn't have any power. But what the elite do, they said to them, Pennsylvania over the proper way to smoke a port butt? What well, if these people get free, they're going to take your job. No exactly do you think the right was? The right was about the fool. They already have it. That's the point. If you gotta charge right to own other human beings and extend that system of $1 a day to work on that farm or in that blacksmith shop, or enslavement into the newly conquered territories to the west building that levy, or working in that house and that owner of after we jacked half of Mexico in a war of aggression that our human beings can get a Black person to do it for free because country started on false pretense, another, another, because they own them, guess who got the gig? Free got the gig. People you do understand, I hope that that's the history, like Mexican like free, they're not going to pay you $1 a day for something folk are coming home, y'all, like coming home to land, coming they can get the enslaved person to do for zero cost. So in a home to land that their people were on long before damn near sense, the system of enslavement undermined the wage base

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LECTURES 11 upon which working class quote unquote, white people relied. because he's not like these you see, there's racism 1.0, racism But rather than realize that and join in solidarity to overthrow 2.0, racism 3.0. But it's all on the same mainframe. That's the that system and take rich folks’ stuff, they decided they’d go to problem. Right? So whether you're running the old software or war and hundreds of thousands of them died for that lie. That's newer, more updated software, the outcomes are similar. And how deeply ingrained it is. Fast forward. The union movement, we've had a 400 year head start on this conditioning. And it's same thing yet, corporate leaders that would actually conspire the very privilege of assuming ownership of this country, the oftentimes with white labor leaders to keep the labor union very way in which whites have been set up to be the very segregated. Foment racial tension between Black workers and model of what an American is, the floor model, the prototype white workers, Asian workers and white workers, Mexican that makes it so hard for us to deal with cultural change. Gotta workers and white workers. Right. And so you got all these be tough, isn't it? To see when you've had 100% of stuff or 90% white labor leaders that fell for it. They're like, yeah, we don't of the good stuff, to only have 70 must feel like oppression. want an integrated union. We integrate the unions, my God, it Think about it. If you've always been top dog and can take it for will reduce the professionalism of the craft. No fool, it'll double granted that you'd always win or virtually always win to the size of your union. And then when you go out on strike, the suddenly have to share must feel like oppression. That's why boss can't replace your happy ass with the Black and brown you get all these videos bouncing around, right? These white folks that you didn't want to work side by side with, because folks that are just like popping off at the slightest thing. That they'll be on the line with you. But if you don't bring them in, woman that got angry because they asked her to buy a $1 and you don't make them members of the union, and you don't recyclable bag at Michael's, she starts screaming at Black work next to them, when you go on strike, that's exactly what people, that white dude that got slow service at a Starbucks like the boss will do. And they will break your strike using the very that's never ever happened. But he got slow service and the people that you didn't want to work next to and then who will barista happened to be Black. So he starts going off. If you think you blame, the boss? No, you will blame them for quote, that slow service at a coffee shop is oppression, you have just unquote, taking your job. This is an old game that is being run. demonstrated your privilege beyond my ability to comprehend. And fast forward to the present, that's the game, that's the void So I don't know what the answers are. But I do know what the into which Donald Trump has walked. questions are. And that's all I want us to think about framing them. How do we have both the radical honesty to call bullshit, * * * * * but the radical empathy to acknowledge that people are in So we have to understand that we're talking about a 400 year pain, it's about redirecting that anger, redirecting that process of conning people and it makes it very hard for us, frustration toward its actual source, the very people who myself included, to know how you break free of 400 years of continue to prey upon their concerns and their fears and their conditioning. I don't claim to have the answer to that, no one anxieties and don't have any intention about doing anything to person does. We're going to have to find the answer to that in challenge the fact that one-tenth of 1% of the population in this community and collectively, but please know that is the country owns the same amount of stuff as the bottom 90% and struggle. That is the work. It isn't about dividing this country that's not going to change by electing a billionaire to office. into the good people over here and the bad people over here. Right? So we need to think about that. The folks who want to make it out to, somehow seem as * * * * * though just all the Trump people are bad, look, not only are not all the Trump voters racist in any real bigoted sense of the But here's the good news in all this, there is some good news. word, but not all the Hillary Clinton voters aren't racist. Or at least there can be if we decide to make it so, you see there are two sort of, it's not just competing visions of race or Remember, remember that in 2008, a month before the white privilege that are at war in this country right now or two election that Barack Obama won, there was a survey that found political visions, Democrat and Republican that are at war right that like 25% of white Democrats, who said they were planning now. They're really two visions of change and leadership. The to vote for Barack Obama and probably did so, 25% of them one that Donald Trump represents is that great man theory of said that even though they liked him, they still believed at least history, right? He certainly perceives himself as the great man, one if not several anti-black stereotypes to be true. So racism, pseudo Emperor, if you will. And it's a very old school of you see, is funny. You can dislike the larger group but, making thought, right? That idea that individuals are who make history exceptions for that guy, or that one over there. I like that one I can't blame Donald Trump for falling prey to that because

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LECTURES 12 that's the history that most of us were taught going all the way they're made to look like is bricks, you get up close, you see back to eighth grade. Think about our history books, right? It hundreds of them, hundreds of them, hundreds of them, get up was filled with leaders, individual narratives of individual close, you see their names on them. Get up real close. So you heroes, usually men, war generals, founding fathers, ask a docent, you read the description of what you're looking industrialists, whatever it wa,s right. And so this great man or at, you begin to see that these are the names of his property, great person, occasionally we have some women included, his human property, the people that he owned. And you begin usually men, this great man theory of history leads us to believe to see not only the contrast between the promise and the that that's how change happens. And it's bad enough when the actual reality of America, but also you're reminded of the leadership of the country feels that way. But even some of us, struggle against that system of tyranny. And how in spite of not sometimes, you know, in the progressive or left or radical being completed, yet how much has been accomplished to community, we fall prey to it too, because think about how we defeat that system of tyranny not by one man or by two men or learn our own movement history, it’s a handful of individuals, a handful of individuals, but by a collective, right, you begin to isn't it? It's a handful of individuals. It's Dr. King, it's Rosa Parks, see the difference between the idea of change coming from right? It's Harriet Tubman. It's Frederick Douglass, we don't individuals and change coming from the people. You keep remember all the names of the forgotten, right, the martyred, moving through and there's Nat Turner's Bible and there's the people whose stories we don't know. Emmett Till's casket, right? And you begin to see all throughout this museum, the stories, the histories, of peoples of color, in But here's the thing right now. It's a very interesting contrast in this case, in the African American community and their non- Washington DC. On the one hand, you have the White House, Black allies, working in solidarity to forge a, quote unquote, currently lived in by Donald Trump and no more than, I don't more perfect union and you begin to see at the end of the day, know, 1,000 yards away, maybe not even that, not even that, Black folks and I would contend this is true for people of color, 500 yards away, is the new Museum of African American generally, Black folks have overcome a lot bigger and a lot History and Culture. And if you ever have a chance to go to it, badder than Donald Trump. And if you don't think, if you don't please do. You need to as soon as you possibly can, if you think that people of color can outlast this man, you don't know haven't done it yet, because there you see a very different, a anything about folks of color. very different message about leadership and about social change. And it stands in marked contrast to the one that If Bull Connor could not stop, folks, Donald Trump will not stop resides at the White House. You go in, and I'm not going to Black folks and brown folks, if Sheriff Jim Clark on the Edmund spoil it or give it away, but it's an incredibly powerful thing, Pettus Bridge in Selma could not stop Black and brown folks, right? You go down 10 stories. And you start with the system of Donald Trump will not, if Lester Maddox in Georgia whose ax enslavement. And over the course of history, you come up handle that used to chase Black folks out of his restaurant with, those 10 stories representing change, representing the if he could not stop people of color, then Donald Trump cannot collective uplift of a people whose collective uplift has gone stop people. People of color, overcoming a lot bigger and a lot hand in hand with the uplift of America and everything that badder. So at the end of the day, we have to remember that we makes America worth fighting for. Right? At some point, you make the difference and we make the change in this country it walk into a room, there's this really powerful thing, right? You has always been, so, it's about what we do. It's not about what walk in, there's a, there's a statue, life size statue of Thomas the quote unquote great leader does. It's about how we Jefferson. And it's sort of dark, shadowed, on the back, behind respond to the not so great leadership of those who find it right on the wall are the words of the Declaration of themselves in high places, and if we're doing what we need to Independence that he wrote, right that “We hold these truths be doing and if we are standing strong in solidarity with one to be self evident that all men are created equal endowed by another and demanding that Black Lives Matter and demanding their Creator with certain unalienable rights among these life, that trans lives matter and demanding that the lives of our liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and so you have these Muslim brothers and sisters matter and demanding that all words contrasted with the reality right? And that's powerful those marginalized by systems of oppression have a place in enough, but then you look and there's these shapes behind this country and demanding that it is we who actually care Jefferson, it looks like boxes or something, looks sort of like about this place. That's the irony, isn't it? Those of us who shoe boxes. You don't know what they are at first, what they consider ourselves left and progressive and radical, we're the are, they may very well be made of shoe boxes. But what ones who get tagged as hating America. We're the ones who

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LECTURES 13 are told love it or leave it but what is more hateful? To believe people killed by police, I suspect in just the last several years? that this country can actually do better than a 15 to one wealth Or is this? The last three years. Okay, thank you for this. I gap or to assume that's the best we can do. To assume that appreciate you putting this together. maybe we can do better than a three to one poverty gap or to just throw your hands up in the air and go, oh, well, we tried, I * * * * * guess that's the best we can do. Which of those arguments is Participant 2: Hi, my name is Mariama. And this is really like a more hateful? Which of those arguments is more pessimistic? hot mic. First and foremost, wanted to say thank you for Which of them is more cynical? You cannot get more cynical coming out. And thank you for engaging in this type of work than somebody who believes that the country's best days are because as a white man, you don't have to. And I guess my, I behind, and that we have to make America great again, that is a have many questions, but I will, anyway, so, my first question is, vision of looking toward the past. can you share a little bit about how you got engaged with this work and how you continue to collaborate with people of color And aside from how incredibly cynical it is, vis-a-vis the lives of to make sure that the narrative you're sharing is the narrative those for whom the country was never great, let me suggest to that people of color want shared? you it is a defeatist vision for everyone in this room, including those of us who have not been marginalized by those systems Tim Wise: Yeah. So I, I first got engaged in this work, really of oppression. So we have to reclaim this country in the name when I was in college in New Orleans, and, you know, was of the kinds of forward progress that so many people like those fortunate enough to have some really amazing mentors at the chronicled in that museum of thought and so many of them People's Institute for Survival and Beyond in New Orleans. Folks died for if we do that. That our children and grandchildren if of color who founded and led that organization, but also the we're lucky enough to one day have them will be able to praise white folks in the, in the organization who were trainers and the work, join the work, continue to struggle, if we fail them, amazing activists and educators in their own right, acting in they will curse our memory. They will curse our names and they solidarity with Black and brown folks. So I began doing work in will live in a country that is far less worth defending thanthe the community there. And did that work for off and on for five one up to now has been. Thank you all so very much for being years, with different organizations trying to figure out, you here. know, sort of, for me, what was it going to mean, as a white * * * * * activist or writer or educator or lecturer or whatever? What was my role? And what was not my role? What could I be helpful in doing and what would I not be helpful in doing, right?

And that's a lot of trial and error. I mean, you know, you sort of Q&A SESSION learn over time, sort of what your role is, and you try to refine it, and then how can I do it in as accountable a way as possible? Because I don't think there's ever such a thing as perfect Tim Wise: So we'll start over here and then we'll come over accountability, but one can get better at it as one goes, making here. And we'll just end, by the way, if you are unable to sure that one is following the lead of people of color, working in physically get to one of the mics and don't have a computer collaboration with them, taking direction from them, leaders that would allow you to send it in under this really nifty system and individuals and groups of color. And so for me, over the that he's talking about, just let us know, raise your hand, we'll years, you know, that sort of, for me as a writer, and as a be sure to get a mic to you. I don't want to presume that speaker, and educator, you know, there's a group of cadre of everybody can get to the mic physically. So we'll start over people with whom I check in on a regular basis, and it changes there and we'll come over here. over time, new people become part of that larger circle. And it Participant 1: Really great presentation. I use your materials in is disproportionately of color. It's also got, obviously some my classes. I appreciate you. May I give you a gift? This is a white allies involved in that, who sort of keep me or try to keep calendar of my own making. me on point and honest and reflective about my own privilege, which I've written about and talked about many, many times. Tim Wise: If you didn’t hear, this is a calendar, a Black Lives And also to make sure that I am aware of and promoting the Matter calendar which chronicles the lives and deaths of work of people of color who do the same stuff.

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LECTURES 14 So, so it's not only why I try to make the point of referencing way that I can try to hold myself accountable to a certain people of color and their work in my, in my scholarship and in extent, everybody has different ways of accountability though. my writing, and also my speeches, but it's why I try to make If you're a teacher in a classroom, you're going to have one line sure that when I send stuff out on social media, for everything I of accountability. If you're a business owner, you're going to send out that I've written some essays or something or video of have some different lines of accountability. If you're a cop, it's mine, I tried to make sure that I'm sending out at least three if going to be a little different. If you’re an attorney it's going to not five, if not 10 links, articles, essays, poems, videos, book be a little different, I think all of us have to ask ourselves in our recommendations that are about work done by people of color line of work, what are the ways that we could structure in to make sure that my readership and the people that follow some, not only deliberative thinking about how to use our me, don't sort of come to the conclusion that wow, that white privilege responsibly, but ways to open up whatever that is that guy's really smart and it's amazing that he thought of all this, we do to other voices, other narratives, other people coming right, because clearly, I mean, you know, I can put some shit into those jobs, into those profession,s into that work and together, like, you know, I can give a good talk. And you know, being heard? And so it's an ongoing conversation that I engage and I can write some stuff and I have some original thoughts with a lot of people in my particular circle of associates, but we from time to time, but the, but the basis, the basis of that all have to do that as well. Thank you. You bet. wisdom is black and brown, it's important to always make that point. * * * * * (1:21:00) Dean Eaton: So yeah, let me read one from the web. The other way for me, the other the other thing that's really What advice do you have for people of color who are trying to important for me, you know, for the last 24 years, I've had a explain white privilege to white people? professional relationship with the, with a nonprofit organization that represents my speeches and books, my Tim Wise: Well, I guess folks of color first have to always ask speeches, but it is an agency that is, you know, 75% speakers themselves the question of how much, how much work do you and educators and artists of color. And the goal of that want to do today? On, on that, on that, I mean really like, you organization is not to function like, as a traditional speaker's know, I mean, right some days you're willing to put in that work bureau but really, as a nonprofit educator and artists and other days you just are done and, and I would imagine the collaborative, that you know, there are a handful of us in the, in same is true when it comes to you know, women trying to the bureau no doubt who, because of our name recognition get explain misogyny and rape culture to men, and you know, a disproportionate amount of work. But the one good thing LGBTQ folk trying to explain transphobia, straight supremacy, about that is the money that has been generated for the all of that cisgendered supremacy to straight and cisgender organization which does leadership development, curriculum people, I mean, at some point, right, it's exhausting. And maybe development, goes into communities and works with leaders of Wednesday, you just are not about that. But, but I think that to color and youth of color in particular, who otherwise might not the extent you want to engage in it and see I don't think it's, I have access to some of those resources, one of the good things don't think it's people of color’s job to hold white people's hand is it allows then, those other speakers many of whom are and teach us, I think it's, I don't think it's your job to teach us. If amazing young activists who work with, you know, groups like you do try to, that's a gift and it's a gift that sadly we don't Black Youth Project 100, or Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, thank you for nearly enough, but, but what I would say is, if you or others whose names maybe you're not as well known, but are attempting to engage, and I'll give you an example, who have amazing, incredible important things to say, to get particularly for some people who don't have the choice but to, out there who otherwise wouldn't be able to get out there, I've talked to a lot of faculty of color around the country who because now they might charge a little bit less money, and a teach at universities much like this one, and especially women school might be able to afford them and because it's a of color, who are dealing with both the the sexism and the nonprofit agency, they don't have to make a lot of money off of embedded misogyny that often they face in the classroom, as that individual so they can get out there and be heard. And so it well as racism, and a lot of times these women of color, and it's helps to facilitate the work and the voice of and hearing the happened with men of color I've talked to as well, but words of people of color. particularly acute in conversations that I've had with women of color, scholars of color who are women, they say, look, you And so I've been really deliberate about trying to work in that know, I'm teaching a class, it might be a sociology class, it might kind of capacity. That's just because as a speaker, that's one

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LECTURES 15 be whatever, and we're engaging these issues of privilege and have two dimes. But we all have a part of this. And if I do that race. And you know, I'm worried because I know that my what these women have said is, look, when I talk about those student evaluations at the end of the grading period or the end ways that I have advantage, and I have privilege that isn't of the year, right are going to be used in tenure decisions in strictly earned, it opens up the conversation, it allows me to most schools and so they're always trying to figure out how do I then focus in on white privilege in a way that they can hear, or do this in a way that number one gets through and number two at least in a way that they can hear better than when I've just doesn't get me off track professionally when folks backlash come at it. And at first, you know, I was skeptical because my against what I'm saying? And that's a real serious conundrum old school training was like, I know that white folks use those that they face. Right? other things to get out of the discussion of white privilege. And I'm always worried about it being a deflection, you know, like, So what they tell me they do, because I'll just, I'll just pass along well, I'm not white because I'm Jewish. Well, I'm Jewish, but their advice and what they say works for them, rather than me you know, that doesn't take away my whiteness in terms of the trying to tell you as a white man what to do, because that's way I'm treated in society. I know the Nazis think it takes away weird. Is they’re, what they say is, look, the one thing that has my genetic whiteness, but I ain’t playing in that field. worked for them best, it doesn't always work and it doesn't work perfectly, but the one thing they say works for them best That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about whiteness is that if they're going to stand up there and talk about, let's as a social construct, right? It doesn't change the way that I'm say, white privilege, for instance, or male privilege, or anything viewed. So I just want us to think about using those examples like that, or white male privilege as a combination, they start right and what are the, what are the areas where you get to be out by acknowledging, which is something I think we all should the oblivious one. What are the areas that you don't have to do, regardless of our racial identity, acknowledging the worry and think about things the same way that others might? privilege systems within which they stand, right, the privilege And I think if we do that, we can open up that conversation to they embody. people who otherwise might be defensive, right? Yes.

Now, as Black women, let's say, they certainly don't embody * * * * * male privilege. They don't embody white privilege, but as (1:26:10) Participant 3: Hi, thank you, Tim, for coming. My scholars and faculty and people with advanced degrees, there's name is Kelsey. I work in the Graduate School and you as well a certain privilege that comes with that, a certain socio- as the work of Peggy McIntosh who’s coming this spring were economic privilege that comes with that, educational privilege, really instrumental in me helping me understand my white if they are straight or cisgendered, there’s privileged there, if privilege as an undergrad. So thank you. I overheard a young they are able-bodied there is privilege there. If they are man, a young white man the other night at a bus stop arguing hearing, there is privilege there, they don't deal with audism or having a very impassioned conversation with a young the way that folks who are deaf do. woman of color. And saying, you know, along the lines of don't Speaking of which privilege, you know, it's such a privilege, tell me I have privilege because I worked really hard to get right, to be in the hearing community, that and an advantage to here. So exactly that intersection of race and class that you be in the hearing community that we don't even know the were discussing. Do you have any advice on how to kind of word audism. And we don't have to even think about what it break like, start that conversation, especially with white folks means if a lecture is going to have sign language interpreters or who do have that class consciousness and are really struggling not, we do this evening, and have at almost every one, if not all and feel very personally attacked, when they're called out? of my speeches over the years, which is great, but a lot of Tim Wise: Well, I mean, look in a competitive market economy, places, we don't think about that. And that's privilege, right? So in order not to drown entirely, you generally have to work if I'm trying to get you to think about white privilege, and I pretty hard. So, when someone says I'm not privileged because might not have white privilege, but I got four or five others or I have to work hard to get here, there's this odd assumption two others or maybe just one other, if I start there, and I say that those two things are incompatible. My great-grandfather, look, we all have as my friend and colleague Jackie Wade says, the Russian Jewish quarter of my family, when he came to this we all have a couple nickels in the quarter, right? We all have a country, he worked 18 hours a day, he was the proverbial hard couple of nickels in the quarter and my nickels might not be working immigrant with, who came with, you know, 18 cents your nickels. And I may only have two nickels and you might

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LECTURES 16 and a ball of lint in his pocket or whatever story we like to tell. as soon as I graduated from college, I graduated from Tulane in And that's true. That's part of his story. He worked really hard. 1990. And at that particular time, David Duke, lifelong white But what is also true is that he came into this country at a time supremacist, former Klan leader, neo-nazi was running for the when non-European immigration had been virtually shut down. United States Senate. In ‘91, he would run for governor. I got a And it is also true that he was able to get jobs in New York City job as the associate director of the main organization that was immediately off the boat that had been off limits to black folks created to defeat him. The only reason I got that job was for about two and a half to three decades by the time he because I knew the two guys that started the organization. One arrived. Now, the fact that he had that privilege, that head start of them was a professor at Tulane and a friend of mine, the doesn't take away his hard work. But the hard work doesn't other was a grad student at Tulane, and a friend of mine, and take away the head start either. Right? You can have a three lap they offered me the gig. If I don't know them, because I didn't head start in a five lap race, and still keep running the last two go to Tulane, or because I was a year older or a year younger or laps, but the point is, if you then proceed to cross the finish line three years older or two years younger, right, then the reality first, don't act like it's because you're the fastest damn runner. is, I'm not going to get that job. And if I don't get that job, I'm not going to start out on a trajectory that a few years later Participant 3: So how would you say that? would allow me to get out on the lecture circuit and do all of this stuff. Tim Wise: What's that? What’s that? Wait, I missed it. I missed that. I'm sure it was hilarious, but I missed that. But why was I at Tulane? That's not to take away my hard work once I got that job, but I would never have had it. Why was I at Participant 3: How would you say that to this person that Tulane, real simple, I went to Tulane in New Orleans, because you're trying to? when I graduated high school, I was chasing a girl who was Tim Wise: Well, I think what you would do if you didn't feel like going to LSU. And this is a young woman who I met at, this saying it like I just did is to start with yourself. Like for instance, sounds incredibly geeky but cute now, debate camp. I was at we all right, have struggled to get whatever we have. Most of debate camp, as she was, at American University in us, most of us haven't been handed and most of us didn't Washington, the summer between our junior and senior year. inherit a 230-million-dollar real estate empire. Most of us didn't We met, she was from Lafayette, Louisiana. She said, Tim, I get a million dollar loan from our daddy, whatever, like, you wasn't going to go to Tulane. I never even thought of Tulane. I know, so, most of us, whatever we do have, you know, I grew was going to go to Emory in Atlanta, I was going to debate for up in an 850 square foot apartment, never had any, we didn't them. That was my plan. She said, Tim, you can't go to, you have vacation money, you know, we I mean, you know, we can't go to Emory. We'll never see each other, and I said, you're didn't have any money, money, I worked hard, I guess, I don't right. Oh my god, and in the manner, in the manner of a very know. foolish 16 almost 17-year-old who thought he was in love, said I will change my entire life for you. But the point is that if we tell our own story, if we talk about all the ways that where we ended up wasn't really about our I'm not bitter about this because shit worked out in the end effort, you know, it might have had something to do with it. But but, so I go to Tulane, and it's only because I know her but how like me, I mean, just to give you the real quick example, and I did I know her? I only knew her because I went to debate camp know we're tight on time, but I, you know, this is, this is, I'm at American, could have gone to other camps, ended up trying to model what I think you need. So here's it, is what I try choosing that one, if I don't choose that one, I don't meet her. I to do. Like with me, I tell people, sure, you know, I've worked don't go to Tulane. I don't meet those men. They don't give me hard to hone my craft as a speaker and as a writer and all that that job. I don't fight David Duke and I'm not here right now. stuff and as an educator and develop pedagogical techniques But the only reason I was a debater, see it gets crazier. It gets that are effective, and that requires a certain amount of insight crazier. The only reason I was a debater was because in spite of and trial and error and intelligence and whatever the hell we the fact that my original talents as a young child had not been think it requires. running my mouth, you may find that hard to believe. I originally, I was a really good athlete, I was a very good baseball But here's the thing: the reason I'm here is not just about white player. So good that I'd actually like always, I was the best and male privilege, though that's a big part of it. There's baseball player, I wasn't the best baseball player, but I was a another big part. I got my very first job doing anti-racism work good baseball player. I had college recruiters that came to my

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LECTURES 17 games when I was 11. And I was convinced that that was going or Equal Opportunity laws, because we had hundreds of years to be my path. I was going to go to college on a ball scholarship, before that. So again, it's the five-lap head start in the eight lap and I was going to play ball, but I didn't know, that was my race or the three lap head start in the five lap race. Affirmative thing. But something happened. And when I tried out my Action is intended to demonstrate the people who started out freshman year of high school, in spite of having had all of this one lap, two laps, three laps behind, if they end up, let's say I talent as a baseball player, I had an inexplicably horrible tryout. started out three laps behind, and at the end of the race, I'm It's like I never played the game before. I couldn't catch. I two laps behind, who's the fastest runner me? Right? I caught couldn't throw, I couldn't hit, I couldn't feel. It's like I'd had a up, I closed the gap. The problem is, when we talk about a stroke, I was completely unable to play this game. And so I got resume for a job, all we see is the finish line. We don't see what cut. If I don't get, and only because I got cut from the team, just went into the process that brought me to the finish line or think about it. If I make the team, I'm not going to be at debate maybe brought you there first, or brought you there first, or camp in the summer, I'm going to be playing more ball in the brought you there first. Same thing with an SAT score. Right, summer. So really, what I'm trying to tell you is that in spite of the SAT score is the finish line of the race. But if I had the three all my hard work and my effort, and whatever talent I may lap head start, I want to have the higher SAT score. Affirmative actually have in this work, the only reason I'm really here is Action says as a college, we're going to be looking at a panoply because of that asshole that cut me from the baseball team, to of factors, a broader range of factors that determine merit, whom I owe everything. And here's the thing, we all have a because that's how you actually get the folks who are the most story like that, we all have a story about somebody that came qualified to be in that institution. Affirmative Action is about into our life and changed it, that we didn't earn their presence. creating not only equal opportunity, but actually promoting We didn't earn the parents that we had. We didn't earn the excellence in a broader, more meaningful sense than what the friends that we had, the neighbors that we had, the professors traditional system of so-called meritocracy has done. I think if that we had, I think if we tell our own story, and say, yeah, it's we talk about it that way, it shifts the debate fundamentally, as about effort, but it's also about all of these intangible opposed to this idea that well, yeah, we're lowering standards. serendipitous things over which we have no control, we can But it's for a good cause. We're not lowering standards, right? maybe begin to break through that. I'm going to take a few The standards that put those white boys in charge of the banks more and I promise I'll be quicker. Go ahead. Go ahead. on Wall Street, were not about affirmative action. That shit was Somebody. about so-called meritocracy, and it damn near destroyed the global economy. So we could do a lot better than whatever * * * * * standards are getting those white guys all those jobs, and (1:33:50) Participant 4: Okay. And one of the things that you're affirmative action is one way of doing it. Yes, real quick. known for talking about is affirmative action. And I'm * * * * * wondering, under this new, like Donald Trump regime, what sort of, what the rhetoric is that you think you should sort of (1:36:15) Participant 5: Thank you for your work and for talk about affirmative action with? Or if you've been thinking coming here and speaking with us. I come from a family that is it's a thing that should be talked about? Because there's deeply divided in ways we see in the nation. And when I've nothing that’s going to happen in four years when it comes to tried to listen very deeply as I think we need to, what I hear is affirmative action? what you talked about, the fear. So I see the fear and I empathize with the fear. But what I find is that we can't have a Tim Wise: Well I mean, we talk about affirmative action in such fact-based conversation because the fear shuts that down. I'm an a-historic way. I mean, the whole history of this country is wondering if you can speak to how, you know, I can't even get the history of affirmative action for white men, the whole to facts with them because of that fear. And so I'm wondering, history of this country is the history of racial preferential how do you connect with that, bridge it, move past it? treatment for the dominant group. So we can sit and talk about whether or not the thing we call affirmative action is really Tim Wise: Well, one is you ratify that, that fear and anxiety at transformative. And I think one can make a good argument that profound social change is understandable. Look, if a person has it hasn't been truly transformative. But you can't begin the been used to a certain way of having things happen and, and, conversation about racial preference in 1970. You can't begin and a certain look of America and a certain look of the culture the conversation about racial preference with civil rights laws and a certain sort of provincial view of what America is, then

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LECTURES 18 they've been trained from day one to flip out whenever there's fool. Right? But what does happen when you ask questions, any substantial change, so I get it. Now, I don't want to over two things happen. Number one, you signal compassion, indulge that because to me, there's also an absurdity to it. But I because you're signaling that you care enough to actually find do want to acknowledge that yeah, it must be tough, right? out what the answer is, right? And the second thing you do is When you've been able to assume that your race, your religion, you cause that person to have to actually articulate the why, your cultural heritage, your sexuality, all of that was the norm. not just the what. And what the research, brain science And now you're being told actually, there's no necessary norm. research says is if I have to explain why, and I don't really have There's just a lot of different norms, and we've got to actually a good reason, which is the premise that you and I are both figure out ways to all be part of a larger whole. If I've never had operating on, if I have to explain the why and I can't really do it, to share, asking me to share is tough, right. It's like I was an I start to realize as I'm offering you my shitty ass explanation, only child, if I'd all of a sudden had a brother like after 15 years that I don't know what I'm talking about. And so then you don't of that, and you're like, play with that kid, I'd be like, nah, man. have to do it. Like it's, you know, you basically lead that person I'm used to this, you know. And so it's more extreme version of to see the gaps in their own argument, just by forcing them to that. But it's, so I get it. So number one is, is not to talk down to explain it openly and out loud rather than letting it just bounce that fear, or to suggest that that fear is irrational. But to begin around in their head. asking questions about what is it we're really afraid of? What is it that we're really, like? Because it seems to me that the thing * * * * * that's made us afraid, is not the change. It's the expectation (1:40:40) Participant 6: I was about to ask a very similar that change would never happen. I feel the thing that's really question, but I come from a conservative family and my brother making us afraid, is the narrative that said we would never have also, first, I went to Tulane too and I saw you speak twice there. to adapt. The thing that's making us afraid is the idea that we But anyways, I also come from a conservative family and like would never face this level of insecurity that some people are my brother keeps posting things like, there's liberal privilege, now facing. and there's no such thing as white privilege. And just, and then we try to engage and it just blows up all the time constantly. Participant 5: But people, what I hear is, I'm in danger. So it And so just I guess very similar, but like, how do we find a puts them into that crocodile brain, right? So they're not, I middle ground? And how do we engage with the other side in a mean, and I'm saying this with all great respect, but when way that doesn't create family explosions? you're in you feel like the tiger’s coming at you. How do you talk to someone who's locked into that absolute fear? Tim Wise: Well, I definitely think if you're in a family situation, where you have that kind of contentious dynamic, the only way Tim Wise: Well, other than ask, again, I think it's about asking to approach it is by sharing of yourself, where you're coming them, who is the tiger? Like, we're, you know, it's like, yes, from, if it's someone who loves you and cares for you, that will okay, you're afraid. And you might have a good reason to be usually work better, right, than the look at this study that I just afraid of the world and there are, you know, dangers out there. found. You're an idiot. You know, as tempting as that is, believe And there are things, you know, but what is the real source of me, usually the storytelling, the personal sharing piece of why that? And, you know, can we work through that? Can we begin you see it the way you see it, and then asking that person to to see that some of the things that you're afraid of might not be explain why they see it the way they see it is, is more the things that are the biggest fears. We are usually as a constructive. But I also want to say to you, you know, and this is culture, we tend to be, if we all think we're going to, you know, the, this is the hard part, because I think there is an extent to die in a plane crash, we all think we're, you know, we get in the which we can't win every fight. And there are some conversion plane, we're like, oh, my God, but we're far less likely to die moments that just ain’t going to happen. And I think sometimes that way than we are driving our cars to work. We're far less, the problem with those of us on the left, whether it is just sort you know, we're afraid of all kinds of things that are not of liberals or people further to the left, right, we, we tend to necessarily rational. But that doesn't mean that they're not have this unhealthy faith in pure reason. Right. It's an unhealthy understandable or predictable. So I think if we engage people faith. It's an unhealthy faith, because psych research says that with, with a process of questions, asking them why they're we don't actually make decisions, including us. We're no better afraid of this, and maybe not this, why they're afraid of this at this than people on the right by the way, we all engage in group, but maybe not this group, right? It's not that they're confirmation bias to a degree. We all engage in what's called necessarily going to all of the sudden go, oh, you're right. I'm a

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LECTURES 19 epistemic closure to a degree, we find what we find that suits I'm going to explain my own examples of privilege, and you can our worldview, and then we close off our mind to anything that do that as well and talk about your own areas where you had might intrude upon it, we all do it. And so one of the ways to certain unearned advantages, perhaps that people of color talk to someone who's doing that from the other side, is to would not, that may begin to break through or it may not, we maybe demonstrate the humility, to acknowledge, listen, you have this unhealthy assumption that we can convert all the know, I've, I will admit that I have a certain bias. I see the world humans and we cannot. Nor should we spend our time on it. I a certain way. And here's some reasons maybe why I see it this think we have two possible strategies, right? One is converting way. So I could be missing something, I don't think I am. But I'm all those folks over there who feel differently. And, you know, willing to acknowledge that I am, willing to be humble enough hey, if you can get some folks to join the fight, who are on that in spite of being a smartass, that I could be wrong about side, God bless and good luck and that's great. But the other something. Now, I need you to demonstrate to me why, it isn't strategy, I think, is more important. enough to just say that I'm wrong. It isn't enough to just insist that I'm wrong. It isn’t enough to say there's no white privilege Rather than spending our time trying to convert folks who were and not actually explain why. But I'm willing to say you know on the other side, dispositionally opposed to what we're talking what, I have a certain worldview. It was inculcated by my about, we got to be mobilizing the folks who are ready for the family, by people with whom I came in contact, by some of the fight, we have to be mobilizing the folks. And, and if we are educators that I met along the way. mobilizing our folk who are extensively ready for the fight, then some people might come along when they see that struggle And that's why I'm coming from this perspective, maybe asked growing, but we can't continue to beat our heads against the that family member, tell me, where did you get your ideas wall thinking that's the main strategy. So give it a shot. Be as because none of us came to, it's not like your brother or you or humble as possible, being caring and compassionate as anyone out there and your cousin or uncle because that's the possible. But also be prepared to know that you know, it may usually the example is the uncle who comes at Thanksgiving. I not work with certain people, right? Real quick. don't know why everybody's got a messed-up uncle, but apparently, because that's the thing. Of course, if somebody's Dave Eaton: I’ve got pages. got that uncle, that guy is also somebody's father. So I know Tim Wise: One more here and one more there and then I swear some of y'all have got a dad like that, too. But we just talked I'll let you get out of here. about it like it's the uncle at the dinner. But maybe you talk to that person by saying, look, you haven't sat down and looked at * * * * * all the evidence, and I haven't either. So let's just have a (1:46:45) Dave Eaton: And I will say I've looked through a lot of conversation about why we see the world the way that we see these, you’ve really done a great job of addressing a lot of it, and maybe try to figure out whether our perceptions could these. What advice would you give to public school educators be a little off because of our experiences, if our lenses are to combat white privilege and racial inequality in schools? maybe a little distorted. Tim Wise: Public school educators, what can they do to combat And you know, for me, the argument is very simple. privilege is, white privilege and racial inequality? Well, you know, they can is to me first and foremost, the ability to not know some stuff do what teachers at Garfield here did in Seattle a couple years and pay no penalty for your ignorance. And the reality is, if ago, right, which is stand up to the state system of testing, and you're a member of a dominant group, whatever that group is, refuse to go along with a system of standardized testing, which you have the luxury of not knowing what others who aren't they realized and realize to this day, is destructive of critical members of that group have to know. This isn't a radical. This thought and real education and real learning. So I think we isn't about politics. This isn't about right and left. This is just need more teachers to do that, right? Because if only a handful basic logic, right? If I as a man, I don't have to know what of teachers do it, they can start reassigning them, they can women experience, as somebody who's white, I don't have to punish them, as was attempted, you know, here in the city. And know what people of color experience and so for me to say in Texas, there have been some teachers who tried it and they there's no white privilege, you know, when people said that, were punished as well, but there was an attempt, but I think we like how would you know? Like if you say there's no racism, need more teachers to be willing to stand up and say, we're not how would you know? By what possible logic can you say that going to play these absurd games that you want us to play that someone else's experience of the world isn't real? Right? And if

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LECTURES 20 have nothing to do with learning, nothing to do with teaching. And I don't mean for it to take away from the greatness of the Education has to be, as bell hooks says, you have to teach to courage and bravery of it, because it certainly doesn't, in my transgress, and you have to be prepared to transgress yourself estimation, take away from that at all. But the reason much of against the system that destroys children every single day. So, the protest activity of that movement worked, as opposed to a public school educators have to decide that more than, more lot of the other stuff going on behind the scenes that wasn't than content specialists, they are revolutionaries, that about epic protest. The protest activity worked principally not education is a revolutionary act. And when you decide that just because you got hundreds of thousands of people in the education is a revolutionary act, everything about how you street and all of a sudden segregationists fold up like a cheap teach from the pedagogical approach and style to the tent and go oh my god, hundreds of thousands of people, we curriculum to the way that you interact with children is going to lose now, that's not what happened. The reason those protests be different. worked was precisely because the state overreacted and attacked people. Let me tell you, if Birmingham, let’s be real * * * * * honest, let's not let's not play games. (1:48:25) Participant 7: Yes. Just really quickly, thank you for all If Bull Connor was smarter, and didn't turn dogs and water of this. When at the end, you were saying that, well, you didn't cannons on children in the middle of downtown Birmingham have any answers, that you had a lot of good questions. And I and just let them march around and do whatever and if there's wanted to know what some of the questions are that you have no bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, or if Jim Clark for those of us who want to mobilize or what your questions decides to just let folks march over that bridge, the first damn are period. time in Selma on the way to Montgomery and doesn't weighed Tim Wise: Say that last part again. in with cops and horses and billy clubs, right, if they just wait them out, and don't brutalize them, we aren't talking about Participant 7: What your questions are, to mobilize people. Selma today. And we're not talking about the Birmingham campaign today. So the problem is, the state has generally Tim Wise: Well, the questions that I want us to ask are these gotten smarter. The forces of reaction usually do not show their questions about how we, how we have both radical honesty, hand that way. Now in Ferguson, they did, in Baltimore, they that is to say, call bullshit on bullshit, when it's what it is, but at did, there's some places where they have, but by and large, the the same time radical empathy for people who are truly in pain. state has learned to not do that. And so you can have three and How do we do that? How do we hold both of those things at a half million people across the country last week marching, once? Right? Because it's hard. It's hard. And there's no, I you got 750,000 in LA, and whatever the numbers were in DC, haven't figured out the perfect way of doing it. But I think that's right around that as well or whatever, but, and then, you know, the task. How do I say to someone, I see your pain, and I know and the state didn't overreact that time now. They did the day it's real. But you're misdiagnosing it, and I want to offer you a before. And they've charged a number of activists with felony different analysis. And I want us to talk about it and struggle riot, which carries 10-year possible penalties. But for the most through it. Some people will be open to hearing it, others part, the state has learned to not overplay their hand. And that won't. But I feel like that's the first question. How do we do means we're going to have to be really creative, because both of those things at the same time? And I think a second frankly, it's only when they do brutalize that suddenly, the question is how do we go beyond, let's say, I didn't mention public turns off, in some cases, the upside of this, and this is a this in the talk, but it comes to mind now as I'm thinking it weird thing to call an upside with this presidency, it is entirely through. possible that we will be back to brutalization. How do we move beyond sort of the epic protest phase of And that means both real dangers for those of us who were out movement building, right, because protests are fine. Epic there in the streets, but dangers that we have to be prepared protests are fine. But let's be real honest. We have a blinkered to confront for the sake of this country, in the sake of justice. understanding of history. And it's, I think we feel this way for a But it also means that when, it also means that when they good reason. We don't want to say this because we want, we overreact, that may give us the opportunity to once again point feel as though saying what I'm about to say, takes away from out the fundamental contradictions of the notion of American the greatness of the movement, let's say the civil rights democracy and representation. And so we'll see what happens movement in particular. But it doesn't make it any less true. but I think we just, we're going to have to have some strategies

OFFICE OF PUBLIC LECTURES 21 and we need to be asking those questions. Now, what do we do other than the marching, other than the demonstrating, what if they don't overreact and give us that clear image of brutality that ends up often helping movements? What if they do get smart enough not to do that? What do we do, then? We're going to have to be very creative. I think one of the things we're going to have to, you know, I said this the other night, and I'm very serious about this. I think we need to be encouraging folks all around the globe to boycott, divest and sanction this country, right. Boycott, divest from, and sanction this country.

And, and, you know, we did that with South Africa. We've done that in other situations as well, we should have and I think it's time for other folks, we're not spending a dime in your country. We're not coming as tourists. We're not doing anything in your country until you figure out a way to remove this unconstitutional leader who already is in violation of at least one section of the Constitution, if not several, and I believe we ought to encourage that and make the economy of this country scream the way South Africa screamed until that particular form of tyranny and this particular form of tyranny is vanquished and if we're not willing to do that, all our marching around, all our talking all our, you know, isn't going to mean anything. Thank you very much.

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